


Best Enemies

by xenoglossy



Category: Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 14:47:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8018146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenoglossy/pseuds/xenoglossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Chief doesn't generally go into the field, but sometimes, if you want a thing done right, you have to do it yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Enemies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AceQueenKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/gifts).



The Chief doesn't generally go into the field herself, not since she became the Chief in the first place. She organizes, she delegates, she supplies information, and the gumshoes do the rest. Usually, this works out. She's good at her job, and the gumshoes are good at theirs--better, certainly, than most of the criminals. But then there's Carmen Sandiego. Carmen Sandiego, perpetual thorn in the Chief's side. Carmen Sandiego, who has been evading ACME's ace agents for far too long now.

So the next time she gets a lead on Carmen, she thinks, sometimes if you want a thing done right, you have to do it yourself.

The Chief packs her things and gets on a plane to Osaka, and from there takes the train to Nara, where a woman who sounds suspiciously like Carmen was last seen after stealing the snow from atop Mount Fuji. (Nara is neither especially near Mount Fuji nor a major transportation hub, but Carmen must have had her reasons for being there; it is entirely possible that one of those reasons was "to confuse the Chief." And maybe to case a few temples while she was at it.) And she starts pounding the pavement, peppering the passers-by with questions. It takes her back. She can almost imagine she's a young rookie again, wide-eyed and idealistic. But if that were the case, Carmen would be here with her, helping her pinpoint the perp, instead of being the one she's chasing down.

She flies to Rome, to Salzburg, to Rio de Janeiro. In Rabat she loses the trail for a bit, but after some fruitless flitting around Africa, she picks it back up in Lagos. Carmen, as an ACME agent, would have loved a chase like this. The Chief remembers the light that used to come into her eyes whenever she was untangling a particularly thorny case. But as time went on, that happened less and less--as Carmen got better, she got bored. The Chief supposes it's flattering that Carmen thought ACME would--the Chief herself would--be more of a challenge than the common crooks.

It's in Sydney that the Chief finally catches up to Carmen. As soon as she gets off the plane ,she can _feel_ that she's close. It's three in the morning, but she's wide awake, and the jet lag is only partly to blame. Asking around for a woman fitting Carmen's description leads her to a hotel--a pretty swanky one, nicer than anyone at ACME is accustomed to. And they say crime doesn't pay.

The Chief takes the elevator up and disengages the lock with a little gadget ACME cooked up for the purpose. Much more elegant than breaking down the door (which, in any case, the Chief probably couldn't manage). And there's Carmen, reclining on the bed in a slinky red dress (because of course she would be). It's the first time the Chief has seen her in person in more years than she'd like to admit. Carmen looks the same as ever--well, older, perhaps, but certainly still the stunner who once turned the heads of half the investigators at ACME. Sort of a shame that these days she goes in for the "giant hat and trenchcoat" look.

Carmen looks up at her with less surprise than the Chief had envisioned (or, if she's honest, hoped for). "Ah, Chief. That _is_ what you're going by these days, isn't it?"

"Yes. But since we're old friends, you can call me the Chief."

Carmen grins, but somehow the Chief has the feeling that it's not because Carmen is impressed by her wit. "When my henchmen told me you were coming yourself, I thought they must be mistaken, but I suppose for once they knew what they were talking about."

"Sometimes it's nice to get out from behind the desk."

"I'm flattered that the head of ACME herself would go to the trouble of coming all the way out here for little old me," Carmen says. "But not, I'm afraid, flattered enough to hang around where I'm wanted."

With that, Carmen gets to her feet and makes a dash for the window, but despite her long, long legs, the Chief is too fast for her. Pulling Carmen back from the window, the Chief pins her bodily against the wall.

"You're under arrest," she says, a bit breathless from the exertion. Just the exertion, definitely.

"Oh, I don't think you're going to do that."

"Why not?"

"I always thought you had a thing for me, back when we were both gumshoes. I don't think you have the heart to see me in the slammer."

"Wishful thinking," the Chief says, not sure herself which sentence that applies to. Her mouth has gone dry all of a sudden.

"And yet you came all this way to see me, which I know you don't make a habit of doing. Anyone might think you actually missed me."

"And all those taunting messages you send to me specifically, sometimes literally daring me to catch you--those are because you don't care about me at all."

Carmen responds by kissing her.

She's very good at it, and it's terrible, because maybe the Chief did entertain certain daydreams once upon a very different time, but right now kissing Carmen Sandiego _and enjoying it_ is the last thing she should be doing. After a too-long moment, she pulls herself away, and says, "You know, that doesn't do much to prove that _I'm_ the one obsessed with _you_."

"I never said obsessed," Carmen says with a smirk, "but if you're admitting it..."

This time the Chief kisses her, really just to shut her up and get rid of that stupid smirk. She puts more teeth into it than is strictly necessary, and Carmen responds by also applying teeth as soon as she gets an opportunity, but in the end Carmen is the one whose lower lip is bleeding slightly, so the Chief feels sort of as though she's won.

And then Carmen is trying to separate the Chief from her ACME uniform, and somewhere in the process of Carmen taking her shirt off the Chief is suddenly struck by a realization of what exactly she's doing and what a terrible, adolescently stupid idea it is, but by that point it seems too late to change her mind. And anyway, as an actual adolescent the Chief was kind of a nerd and not much given to ill-advised sexual encounters in Australian hotel rooms or anywhere else, so she might as well have her fun now.

Anyway, she thinks, as she slides a hand under Carmen's skirt by way of the convenient slit up the side, this may be the best chance she gets to see--to _make_ \--Carmen squirm.

As dedicated as the Chief is to making Carmen lose her composure, however, Carmen is equally dedicated to the reverse, which she is also unfairly good at. But then, having nimble fingers is probably necessary for a thief.

"Look at you," Carmen says, her breath hot on the Chief's face as she curls her fingers just so. The Chief makes a small, inarticulate noise in the back of her throat.

"What _would_ they say at ACME if they could see you now?" Carmen goes on.

"Are you," the Chief says, and then has to take a minute to figure out what the rest of the sentence is supposed to be, because it's very hard to think. "... Threatening to blackmail me?"

"Oh, no," Carmen says, all innocence. "It's just an entertaining image."

The Chief regains just enough composure to say, "And how much respect would VILE have for you if they knew you were literally in bed with the enemy?"

"Actually I'm not," Carmen says, "technically." Which is true, but the Chief feels she can't be expected to come up with good wordplay under the circumstances.

Eventually they do end up there, because it turns out that standing up against the wall gets uncomfortable after a while, which is information the Chief has not previously had occasion to learn. It's been an educational evening. The bed is also useful because by the time they're both finished, the Chief feels exhausted and sort of boneless, and she's not sure she could stand up if she tried, at least for the next several minutes. But she did get Carmen off before Carmen did her, so that's winning. Right? It was definitely a competition, though the goal was a bit unclear.

As they lie there, Carmen says, a bit wistfully, "I don't suppose you'd consider joining VILE? We could do great things, you and I."

"No more than you'd consider coming back to ACME," the Chief replies, doing her best not to sound wistful.

Carmen laughs. "Touche. You might make a better archrival than an ally, anyway."

The Chief puzzles that one over for a moment. "Is that an insult or a compliment?"

"I'm not sure."

Fifteen minutes later, the Chief gets up to get a glass of water, and when she comes back, Carmen is gone, as the Chief, if she's honest, knew perfectly well she would be. And while she's admitting uncomfortable truths to herself, she may as well add that she doesn't mind much. 

After all, now the chase is on again.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I've ruined my own childhood writing this. It was fun, though!
> 
> Carmen's backstory as a former ACME agent is from Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego (the 1997 game, apparently later retitled Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time). I know that wasn't the particular game requested, but I like the layer of complication that adds to her relationship with the Chief.


End file.
